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ShnickyShnack wrote:

A religion is a reflection of the society in which it thrives. Once upon a time Islam was cultured, diverse and modern while Christianity was thuggish, xenophobic and grotesquely violent. As the societies underlying those faiths have changed, so have the religions.

The countries of the Mideast are in severe crisis and have been for a long time; nothing better illustrates that than the spread of bloodthirsty fanaticism -- though I do find myself wondering what percentage of Muslims are actually fanatics. We only ever see the crazies on the tube.

Anyway, blaming a religion for violence is just blaming a symptom. Pretty much pointless.

No, blaming a religion for violence is blaming the source. What the hell are you drinking that makes you think that a religion is a symptom of violence?

Duke Stratosphere wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

A religion is a reflection of the society in which it thrives. Once upon a time Islam was cultured, diverse and modern while Christianity was thuggish, xenophobic and grotesquely violent. As the societies underlying those faiths have changed, so have the religions.

The countries of the Mideast are in severe crisis and have been for a long time; nothing better illustrates that than the spread of bloodthirsty fanaticism -- though I do find myself wondering what percentage of Muslims are actually fanatics. We only ever see the crazies on the tube.

Anyway, blaming a religion for violence is just blaming a symptom. Pretty much pointless.

No, blaming a religion for violence is blaming the source. What the hell are you drinking that makes you think that a religion is a symptom of violence?

Protip: once in awhile, read the post you're responding to (doing so increases the odds that your opinion will be related to it in some way).

ShnickyShnack wrote:

though I do find myself wondering what percentage of Muslims are actually fanatics. We only ever see the crazies on the tube.

I have wondered the same thing and have spent some considerable time looking online for the proverbial "moderate" Islamic voices. As far as I can see what is referred to as "moderate" islam is still pretty damned extreme. Sad to say but apparently the qualification to be considered a "moderate" Islamic is that you do not explicitly endorse violence.
All, and I mean ALL of the Islamic voices I have found that vehemently rejected the current state of Islam were lone voice schismatics who were well outside the mainstream and often in hiding because their views had earned them a declaration of vendetta by the mainstream Islamics.
Where is the diversity of thought in Islam? Why are free thinking progressive Muslims hiding in fear for their lives?
Seems to me that many people have simply adopted as an axiom that all faiths share the same, peaceful goals and values. I do not think this is the case.
I do not find the "...but 500 years ago.." argument compelling at all. It is the classic case of two wrongs do not make a right. The crimes of Christianity as the state faith are well known and well documented. It is what happens when you allow the clergy to determine the law. This object lesson is there for anyone to see and the crimes of Medieval Christianity informed the way latter countries organized themselves to prevent such things from happening again. Because of it's excesses the West castrated and domesticated the church. To the benefit of all.
Islam has not been neutered in the same way so it is still a wild. violent, primitive beast. Christianity was what Islam is now. Moral, right thinking people should condemn the crimes of the Christian past and condemn the crimes of Islam present.
The former does not excuse the latter.

Duke Stratosphere wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Duke Stratosphere wrote:

No, blaming a religion for violence is blaming the source. What the hell are you drinking that makes you think that a religion is a symptom of violence?

Protip: once in awhile, read the post you're responding to (doing so increases the odds that your opinion will be related to it in some way).

OK, then, just what are you saying that religion is a symptom of?

Its society.

If a society is prosperous, diverse, peaceful, optimistic and other such good stuff, its religion will probably be benign; if a society is impoverished, oppressed, violent, devoid of hope -- hell, on the verge of collapse -- then its religion will reflect that.

Let's try the flip side: the West is democratic and, for the most part, non-fanatical. Do you think that's because of Christianity?

That explains why Islam is a problem today. Explaining why something is the way it is does not eliminate the problem.

Jaligard wrote:

Pithecanthropus wrote:

We are NOT fighting Islam.  We are fighting radical extremists.

I hate the phrase "radical extremists". If we're fighting radical extremists, can we add the Administration to our list of enemies?

We should be fighting terrorists. Instead, we're sending our sons and daughters to be a human demilitarized zone in Iraq.

I plan on fighting the current administration in the voting booth.  I will not be voting for an extension of this "war."

I hate the war in Iraq.  It's pointless and has been since day one.  Anyone who gives me the "at least we got rid of an evil dictator" argument gets a big roll of the eyes from me.  We had no business going in there in the first place.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, made sense initially.  We were going after the people who directly attacked the US.  Fat lot of good it did us, however, and now we're stuck there, too.

Through it all the US acts as if we've never done anything wrong to attract the ire of certain parts of the world.  No, I don't think that justifies knocking down the Towers, but it certainly explains why.

We'll withdraw just as soon as the oil runs out.

Won't be long now.

isaly wrote:

user wrote:

We separated Church and State here. The Church lost the legal power to condemn - that's a big reason why Christianity today is relatively bloodless.

Islam should likewise lose power.

Actually, I think you should think about that a bit more. This administration claims the power of the Christian god to do all this goofy stuff. People like Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed have been hell bent for leather in terms of trying to politicize people to make the government more "Christian".

The Christian god has to come out on top. . . the bible says so.

I don't think that there's anyone on this planet who actually understands anything remotely approaching what "God" wants.

That's well worth noting. What's a few lone nuts compared to the crazy smurf George W. "God Told Me To Do It" Bush has been getting up to?

Schnicky is on point. I think you could eliminate religious belief and you'd still have the same level of violence and warfare and so on. Religion is a vehicle for it, sure. Remove it, you still got politics and nationalism among other things to take its place. And when you take it right down to the mat, the issues everyone in here debates about or whatever issue is being duked out in court or killing in the name of boils down to policies. People dying and killing in the name of a God is no better the equation of people sacrificing life and limb and killing in the name of their state or national group, race or whatever else. Its all about power. And the easiest way to draw it is to rally up an intolerance for certain groups of people for one reason or another- the reason doesnt actually matter, the division of intolerance itself is all you need.

Last edited by StaticAge (2008-03-29 12:00 pm)

. . . and I agree, humanity  would be violent without religion to help it along, I just question the "religion as a positive social force" argument.

So, we're fighting against agitprop now? I don't understand. Could you explain it to me one more time, NokX?

Are you suggesting that not even NokX knows what he's fighting against?